The present invention is directed to a seat for a vehicle, such as an automobile, van, bus, and the like, which allows for easy and safe seating of an elderly or handicapped person, and easy and safe alightment from the seat.
Presently-used vehicular seats, such as the conventional car passenger seat in the automobile, is not well-equipped to accomodate persons for whom there is considerable difficulty in seating himself or herself on the seat and getting up from the seat when exiting from the vehicle. So-called swivel seats have been known for a long time, but these typically consist of a simple vehicular seat that pivots about a vertical axis, which vertical axis may or may not be eccentrically positioned relative to the mid-plane of the seat taken from front-to-rear of the vehicle. This swivelling of the seat allows easier egress from the vehicle, since the seat faces toward the doorway of the vehicle. In some instances, especially in an offset-pivot axis, such pivotal movement toward the door would permit the seated person to implant his or her feet directly on the ground after the seat has been pivoted to face toward the door.
However, these swivel seats are not meant for use by handicapped and elderly persons, but simply to serve to help one into and out of the vehicle in a faster and easier manner.
There are vehicular seats expressly made for handicapped persons, but such prior art seats are cumbersome, difficult to operate, and are usually unsightly and appear specially-made for a handicapped person. Typically, such prior art seats for handicapped persons employ heavy lifting equipment that is not only costly, but difficult to maintain, which is limited in the type of vehicle in which it can be utilized. Owing to their size and weight, a large-sized van or bus is the only vehicle that can be considered for the deployment of these prior art seats. The use of such seats in passenger cars is impossible. Further, their use in vans and buses serves to limit the available space for other passengers, while their manner of operation requires special vehicle-frame entrance openings to accomodate their size and operation.